In his excellent new history booklet, "The Treasure Called Tubbs Hill," CDA attorney Scott Reed recounts the story to preserve 34 acres at the hill's top that applies today. Seems German investors were negotiating with a local group to develop the crown of Tubbs Hill. Their plan was to obtain crucial water and sewer service through a building lot developed on the north side of the hill under questionable circumstances by former city building inspector Ozzie Walch. Reed tells of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering involving a list of leading citizens that was necessary to block the development threat and to set the stage for the public to obtain title to the property for $250,000 (half of which was paid by Land and Water Conservation funds). Undeterred, Walch, who'd been fired from his city job for beginning to build a house on Tubbs Hill without a permit, lobbied in letters to the editor and newspaper ads against preserving the hill top for public use. In doing so, he offered the same lame argument that those opposed to the Education Corridor are using today – local governments would lose property tax if the top of Tubbs Hill was public. Some $135,000 per year. Remember this when some 21st century Ozzie Walch bellows that the proposed Education Corridor should be private rather than public to expand the tax base/DFO, Handle Extra Huckleberries. More here.
Question: What do you consider to be the greatest public treasure in Coeur d'Alene, excluding Lake Coeur d'Alene?
D.F. Oliveria started Huckleberries Online on Feb. 16, 2004. Oliveria's Sunday print Huckleberries is a past winner of the national Herb Caen Memorial Column contest.
investors were negotiating with a local group to develop the crown of Tubbs Hill. Their plan was to obtain crucial water and sewer service through a building lot developed on the north side of the hill under questionable circumstances by former city building inspector Ozzie Walch. Reed tells of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering involving a list of leading citizens that was necessary to block the development threat and to set the stage for the public to obtain title to the property for $250,000 (half of which was paid by Land and Water Conservation funds). Undeterred, Walch, who'd been fired from his city job for beginning to build a house on Tubbs Hill without a permit, lobbied in letters to the editor and newspaper ads against preserving the hill top for public use. In doing so, he offered the same lame argument that those opposed to the Education Corridor are using today – local governments would lose property tax if the top of Tubbs Hill was public. Some $135,000 per year. Remember this when some 21st century Ozzie Walch bellows that the proposed Education Corridor should be private rather than public to expand the tax base/DFO, Handle Extra Huckleberries. More here.
